Project

Draper Venture Network is a global network of venture capital funds based in San Francisco that has 17 funds in 60 cities with $1.8B in managed assets. Their largest event of the year, the Draper CEO Summit, brings their 500+ funded startups together to meet and connect with VCs and Corporate Contacts.

After unsuccessful previous attempts with a Bay Area development agency and an in-house developer, Draper came to AE because they needed a team that could move fast and deliver a high-quality product a before the Draper CEO Summit (which was just 4 months away).

Primary Project Goals:• A website to showcase Draper’s 17 funds and 500 companies and allow interested VCs to learn about these companies for potential investment
• A member portal to connect Startups CEOs to VCs and Corporate Contacts so they could leverage these relationships to grow their companies and set up time to meet at the CEO Summit
• An online platform where all those connected with Draper could learn more about the network and the CEO Summit and have access to content that is exclusive to the Draper Venture Network

Process

Our engagement began with a detailed on-site scoping session, where we determined the most impactful features we could build for DVN’s members and determined the visual look of the project.

We focused on lean, agile product development to give us maximum flexibility as we went - something DVN had never had with past consultants. Building out the site incrementally allowed their team to touch and use features as we went, making adjustments to design and UX as we progressed.

We broke the project into two phases and allowed DVN to determine product priorities collaboratively with us, choosing which features we’d launch in August and which we’d launch in October before the CEO Summit. This allowed us to migrate over all of their old data, including an integration with Salesforce, so the site would be populated on day one.

Technologies we used:

Zeplin for sharing designs and receiving feedback

Invision for creating prototypes and sharing flows

Sketch for all logo editing, product design and icon creation

React for front-end web app

Ruby on Rails for back-end server

Heroku for site deployment

Salesforce Integration for client CMS

Results

This year's Summit was Draper's best yet due to our new Member Portal.

DVN launched the portal on time for the big event, sharing the new offering with their members, investors and corporate partners.

They’ve had more CEOs on the portal than ever before, increasing value in the network as they continue to expand the network globally. Attendees successfully used our Member Portal to connect with VCs, CEOs, and Corporate Executives and achieve funding and strategic goals at the Summit.

CEO Summit Stats From drapernetwork.com

19

Member Funds inAttendance

152

Portfolio CEOs from5 different continents

68

Current &Prospective LPs

66

CorporationsRepresented

880

CEO & Corporate1 on 1 meetings

16

CEO Workshopsconducted

“AE was great at taking this 30,000ft. idea we had in our heads and turning it into a tangible product that looks beautiful and works as our users expect. They translated our business goals into actionable user stories and helped us shape the product in smart, startup-y ways as we went. We’re thrilled with the results.“